


Bridge Jumpers: Guide to the Afterlife

by miserylovedme



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M, Suicide, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 18:29:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4532652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miserylovedme/pseuds/miserylovedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete never regrets anything like he does the night he drove his car off a bridge in north-east Chicago and killed himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridge Jumpers: Guide to the Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by and titles taken from Armor For Sleep's "What to Do When You are Dead".
> 
> If you see this (or any of my works) posted elsewhere, please let me know. I have never given permission for my writing to be reposted.
> 
> Nothing has been edited since this work was originally posted, so you'll have to forgive any errors or potential grammar mistakes. Please don't harass my go-between asking for things; they'll be posted when I have the time.
> 
>  
> 
> Original post date: summer 2008

**CAR UNDERWATER**

 

Pete never regrets anything like he does the night he drove his car off a bridge in north-east Chicago and killed himself.

He can remember it vividly after a while, the feel of the water on him, icy cold on his skin and filling his lungs, fighting against the seatbelt when he had an in-vain moment of realization that he’d made a huge fucking mistake. The fear, the panic and then nothing.

Just nothing.

It wasn’t blissful or empty like he thought it would be. He just woke right back up an undetermined amount of time later laying on the riverside, blinking at the clear sky above. His shoes were missing and his skin felt damp even though his clothes were completely dry, aside from his ankles which were still in the water itself, lapping up around his heels.

He sat up and expected it to hurt. But he felt nothing.

Just nothing.

Slow blinking brought back the memories and he felt frantically at his neck, fingers dipping in against the clammy hollow of skin. The complete lack of pulse told him everything he needed to know.

He was dead.

 

**THE TRUTH ABOUT HEAVEN**

 

Patrick is a mess.

Pete found this out after he’d trudged barefoot all the way to Patrick’s house. He couldn’t feel the wind or the sun or even the stones he knew should be biting into the soles of his feet. He breathed when he remembered and he blinked involuntarily even though his eyes never once felt dry.

_He_ didn’t feel dry.

Everything about him was just wet and cold from the inside out and there was nothing he could do about it.

He kept his arms wrapped around himself and slid right through the door into Patrick’s house and headed for his bedroom.

Bypassing the pages upon pages and piles of newspaper articles he could tell he’d been dead for a while. Or at least they suspected it. His body hadn’t been found yet.

And when Pete paused, reaching out to straighten one of the pages, his hand going right through the table, he realized he couldn’t remember where his body was either. Or where he’d left it anyway.

A shuffle of sound and movement caught his eye.

Patrick was sitting up on the couch, pale, ragged and puffy-eyed. Pete didn’t have to even look at the open notebook of angry, fearful, pained lyrics visible on Patrick’s placemat to know that this was his fault. He’d done this.

When he tried to touch Patrick, nothing happened. When he tried to speak and even throw things around, nothing happened. Patrick had no idea he was there even though he was screaming right in his face.

Eventually Pete had to give up, but not until he caught sight of a new article on the table. His face contorted and Pete turned. Things looked different already. The sun was lower in the sky than it was before, dawning again as it had already hours before only without the break of night in between. Patrick wasn’t on the couch. Things were messier, the notebook was gone and an article about discovering Pete’s car and his body being laid to rest was now on top.

Pete rubbed at his damp eyes and realized that days had passed since he’d walked away from Patrick what felt like mere minutes ago.

He had no grasp on anything and suddenly it was night.

 

\--

 

Finding his grave is easy enough, though he doesn’t quite know how he knew where to look. He doesn’t remember walking to the cemetery or anything else really.

The dirt isn’t fresh and he has absolutely no idea how long it has actually taken him to get here.

Weeks, months maybe.

He blinks up at the sky for a minute before dropping silently to his knees. Even if it weren’t for the rustle of the wind in the tree above him he knows he wouldn’t have heard anything anyway.

He’s not surprised to realize more time has passed in the past few seconds and there is now a sealed envelope under a rock right by the headstone.

It takes him by surprise when he actually manages to grasp it between his fingers and tear it open.

Pete never wishes more in his non-life that he could cry, not that he’s had time to really experience a whole lot, what with the days passing like nano-seconds around him. He just assumes.

Pete would know that handwriting anywhere. It says only one word.

_Why?_

And suddenly Pete feels like he’s having a flashback, but without the images or memories. He just _feels_.

He feels imperfection and depression, empty and wet and all that fucking _nothing_ he felt when he was alive.

He comes back to himself in the mid-afternoon sun with a gasp and realizes he’s accomplished absolutely nothing. It isn’t what he thought, it never will be because he’s alone in his own purgatory where the one person he ever wanted to be close to can’t even sense him around.

Pete grips the letter and doesn’t let go.

 

**REMEMBER TO FEEL REAL**

 

Without anywhere else to go, Pete walks back to Patrick’s.

He gives up trying to figure out what day it is and how long he’s been dead because he just doesn’t care. He’s got a wrinkled envelope clutched in his hand and Patrick is staring blankly at the window in a black and yellow Bartskull hoodie, sniffing absently.

Pete’s mind lapses for a moment because the next thing he knows Patrick is leading Hemmy into the living room, talking to him, telling him to make himself at home and then getting to his knees to stroke his head before dropping back into a sitting position and sobbing into his hands.

Pete flails off the couch and kneels before Patrick. He doesn’t try to touch him because he knows it’s completely useless. But he speaks.

And Hemmy looks up at him.

Pete stares and whispers Hemmy’s name.

Hemmy whines and leans forward, sniffing hard and looking confused before nudging Patrick’s hand and licking his knuckles. Patrick wraps Pete’s dog into a hug and Pete suddenly realizes that his mom must have given Hemmy to Patrick.

Hemmy snuffs in his general direction again and Pete realizes Patrick’s been talking to Hemmy and he can’t remember anything he’s said. He fears time lapse again and sure enough, by the time he reaches out to Hemmy he and Patrick are gone and Pete is alone in the dark on the floor.

 

**AWKWARD LAST WORDS**

 

Pete knows Hemmy senses him, knows that he’s there. He comes sometimes when Pete calls him and Pete’s getting better at touching him, but try as he might he can’t touch Patrick. He just doesn’t feel it.

He feels like a stalker, following Patrick whenever he doesn’t lapse and then finding him again immediately when he does. He watches him day and night, when he’s sleeping, crying, writing, everything.

The tears come less frequently and the newspaper articles begin to straighten and Patrick looks a little more human every time Pete sees him. He’s not too sure he’s happy about that because he isn’t positive that doesn’t mean Patrick’s forgetting about him or if he’s just getting better. Pete wants him to get better, he doesn’t want Patrick to sob while holding onto Hemmy anymore. He’s seen that too much; and while the tears come less often, when they do come, they come with a vengeance.

Joe and Andy blaze through every once in a while and Pete feels like he’s missing more and more. And once while Andy is looking right at him, Pete’s frustration boils over and he screams and throws a book across the room, and to his utter shock, Andy notices.

He does a double take and then finally stares at where, in real time, Pete’s managed to shove a book off an end table.

By the time Pete re-gathers himself it’s some other day and the chance to be seen is gone.

The next night he’s able to, he slips through Patrick’s closed bedroom door and quiets Hemmy with a stroke over his head and watches Patrick sleep without blinking. He twitches every once in a while and Pete figures he’s dreaming but it’s better than nightmares so he doesn’t urge Hemmy to wake him up.

Pete traces the dark circle under one of his eyes and fingers a thin lock of hair before stroking Patrick’s sideburn. He can’t really feel it, but then, he can’t really feel much of anything besides the envelope digging into his palm and he can’t remember when he dug it out of his back pocket and doesn’t really care.

He tells Patrick, leaning in and letting his numb lips brush Patrick’s ear, that he’s going to make him proud somehow.

And when he pulls back Patrick is blinking awake and Hemmy is sitting up on the bed. And just for a moment, just for one _second_ , Patrick lifts his hand and reaches out and Pete _knows_ Patrick knows he’s there.

For the first time in fuck knows how long Pete feels almost alive.

 

**STAY ON THE GROUND**

 

Patrick hasn’t written or recorded a single thing since Pete managed to get back to him. He watches Patrick get better little by little but he doesn’t watch him live.

It infuriates Pete.

If Pete was alive he’d… he doesn’t let himself get into that because it’s pointless. He had a chance and now he’s sitting on Patrick’s couch, stroking Hemmy’s head because it’s all he can feel besides the envelope in his back pocket.

He loses Hemmy soon after though when Patrick fills up his food dish. Pete brings his knees up and rests his head on them. By the time he opens his eyes it’s another day and Patrick is nowhere to be found.

With a sigh, Pete gets up and slowly walks into his bedroom, laying down on the side of the bed Patrick tends to sleep on and buries his face in the pillow. He can’t smell anything, but he closes his eyes and breathes deeply. He hasn’t encountered anyone to explain the rules of being dead to him yet, so he figures it’s all right to pretend.

He wakes up and Patrick is laying beside him, facing him, eyes open and blinking sparsely.

Pete holds his non-existent breath and reaches out, just barely touching his fingertips to Patrick’s eyebrow and Patrick nearly falls off the bed as he scrambles up and away.

If Pete had a heart that was still working he thinks it would have stopped. Patrick is staring at him, through him, but _at_ him nonetheless. Pete sits up and Patrick storms off into the bathroom, biting on his bottom lip, eyes already turning red and he slams the door behind him.

Pete listens to him cry but doesn’t move. Hemmy whines outside the door.

 

**A QUICK LITTLE FLIGHT**

 

Patrick doesn’t seem to see him or sense him at all for the next little while and Pete passes the time by learning how to control the skips in it.

He finds that it happens most often during the morning hours and whenever he closes his eyes or concentrates on something for too long. He blinks less than ever and doesn’t try to sleep, because it’s pointless anyway. It just makes him feel more at ease with things when he goes on pretending to live.

He spends a lot more time watching Patrick and Joe, who seems to be over a lot more lately. He wonders about Andy; if Andy forgot him or is trying to forget him. If it’s just too much for Andy or something. He wouldn’t blame him if it was.

He’d probably be really, really pissed off if one of them had done this to him and not the other way around.

Pete mopes back into Patrick’s bedroom and sits beside him on the bed, reaching out to brush his hair away from his eyes. He’s gotten better at touching things, but Hemmy is still the only one who can tell he’s there. He’s heard dogs and cats are sensitive to ghosts and things like that before but he hadn’t really thought about it. Although now he does because there isn’t anything else to do with his abundance of time.

When Pete sighs, Patrick opens his eyes and lifts his head from the pillow, looking around briefly before rolling over away from Pete and wrapping an arm around Hemmy.

Pete leaves for the living room.

 

**THE MORE YOU TALK THE LESS I HEAR**

 

Pete spends a lot of time outside, whenever Patrick isn’t home [which is an increasingly often occurrence]. Sometimes people out walking their dogs in the apartment complex will have to tighten their holds on the leashes because they howl when they pass by Pete and make jumps for him.

He can’t feel the heat from the sun or the cold breeze that late fall brings. He isn’t sure when he killed himself anymore or how long he’s been dead, but he figures it doesn’t really matter. If he was going to heaven or hell he supposes it would have happened by now. Maybe he should have practiced religion or believed in _something_. But it’s too late for that, so he doesn’t give much more thought to anything other than the fact that he’s in some form of purgatory and he’s probably not getting out any time soon.

Sometimes Pete wonders if he’s a ghost, or just collected energy or whatever they call spirits on _Ghost Hunters_. But he doesn’t really care a whole lot.

Especially not times like now when Patrick’s car is pulling into the numbered spot outside the building and Pete can finally see him again.

 

**BASEMENT GHOST SINGING**

 

When Patrick starts creating music again, Pete starts to feel differently. Not in the metaphysical sense, but in the sense that something is different. He has no body to feel anything with anymore, besides his dog, who is currently following him as he paces around the kitchen table, watching Patrick work on his Macbook. He’s got his headphones in and Pete can’t hear a damn thing.

He wants to so badly that if he could he’d walk right over and slap Patrick’s hat of his head and tell him to stop being a douche and share.

He fights a lapse when he blinks for just a moment too long and grips the table as if it can steady time and pull it back. It’s gotten a little later, he can tell, but not much. It’s still the same day and Patrick is still there, working away, staring hard at the screen.

When Hemmy whines loudly and nudges his head against Patrick’s foot, Patrick finally slides the headphones off and looks down at him, apologizing before scooting the chair away from the table and heading for his food and water dish.

Pete watches and worries his lip.

It can’t hurt to try, he figures.

Slowly, he runs his fingers over the narrow edge of the computer before clicking the play button. Nothing happens so he tries again. It still doesn’t start and Pete is suddenly so fucking angry that he slams his hands down on the keyboard and it works. He can see the time start to tick away as the song progresses on the screen and he strains to hear it, realizing a moment later that the headphones are still in it.

It takes another angry outburst but he gets it, yanking the cord and pulling the jack free and he hears Patrick drop Hemmy’s food dish, running back in, hand clenched absently over his heart and eying his Macbook suspiciously. He looks afraid and Pete guesses he probably should be.

His former best friend and bassist is standing beside his computer and has been watching him day and night since he came back from the dead.

Patrick carefully clicks the pause button and licks his bottom lip before looking up and around, kneeling to pick up his headphones and winding the cord around his hand. He looks like he wants to say something and finally he seems to give in.

“Pete?” he nearly whispers.

Oh fuck. Pete would cry right now if he could. Patrick swallows and Pete places a hand on his shoulder. “I’m here,” he chokes out. “I’m right here, Patrick.”

Patrick doesn’t seem to feel it or hear anything, even though he stands and waits, strains to for a few solid minutes before sighing and closing his computer. He reaches up and rubs at his eyes before walking right through Pete and heading for his bedroom.

 

**WALKING AT NIGHT, ALONE**

 

For some reason when Patrick leaves he takes Hemmy and Pete follows without thinking.

He doesn’t remember the car ride but he realizes where they are instantly. Patrick heads for Pete’s grave with his hands in his hoodie pockets, Hemmy on his heels. He looks down and just stares.

Pete stays back a little ways, feeling like he’s intruding on something that he’s clearly a part of. It’s his body down there after all and him that Patrick is speaking to, even though the idea suddenly seems morbid to him that anyone would come to a place filled with dead bodies and speak to one of them.

Patrick toes around a moment before he starts, “Hey, asshole.” Pete wants to cry and laugh at the same time. “I still have no fucking idea why you did this to me.” He sighs and rubs at his eyes. “Joe kinda wants to start a new band. I think Andy does too but I’m just kind of _there_. I don’t want to move on and do something else.” Pete wants to tell him both yes, you remember me forever and don’t ever move on, and no, Patrick, you _need_ to keep creating and living. But he can say neither so he takes a few steps closer and watches Hemmy watch him.

“I don’t know, dude. A year’s a long fucking time and,” Patrick’s arms drop at his sides before he’s digging out a sealed envelope and sliding it back under the same rock Pete had taken the first note from.

“I keep leaving these,” Patrick says, kneeling down in the damp grass, ignoring the wetness that immediately begins to seep into his jeans. “I don’t know if some fucking fan or someone is taking them but… I just hope you know what they say.” He’s whispering by the time he’s done and he reaches out to trace the letters in Pete’s first name before dropping his hand and slowly getting back to his feet.

He sighs once more and says, “Hemmy misses you” before resting his hand on top of the gravestone for a moment and then calling Hemmy to follow.

Pete doesn’t go with him and he waits for Patrick’s car to drive off before he gets down in the same spot Patrick was in and concentrates hard enough to fold his fingers over the envelope and clutch it in his hands.

He doesn’t go back to Patrick’s that night, he sits under the nearby tree, listening to the wind move the leaves and digging envelope after envelope out of his pockets. He doesn’t remember going to get them. They’re all still sealed, they’re all from Patrick.

Pete is suddenly very aware that he has absolutely no control over the time lapses or himself. He doesn’t remember things, _important_ things that he knows he should. He brings his knees up and rests his head on them. He doesn’t care if time passes anymore. He just wants out.

 

**I HAVE BEEN RIGHT ALL ALONG**

 

Pete isn’t sure how he decided what he had to do, he just _knows_ that he knows and that if he really wants to get out of his pseudo-life and let Patrick get on with his real life, he has to do it.

He goes back to Patrick’s and lays with Hemmy on the couch for a long, long while. He doesn’t want to give him up ever, but he supposes he should have thought of that before he made The Stupidest Mistake Ever and waits until he’s sleeping before kissing his head and standing up.

He knows it’s completely useless, as he watches Patrick sleep, but he just wants to be able to say goodbye this time. He waits until the sun comes up so he can just be there and looks at Patrick’s bright, bright eyes the moment they first open.

Pete smiles and leans in quickly to brush a kiss on the corner of his mouth before easing away from the bed, deciding that that look, that memory [if he can hold onto it] will have to last him until Patrick passes away a million years from now a successful, happy, old music producer.

He very nearly rethinks his decision when Patrick sits up and draws his fingertips over where Pete had just pressed his lips.

 

**THE END OF A FRAUD**

 

Pete walks slowly back to the bridge, aware that another time lapse has taken place, but uncaring.

He steps right through the guard rail and balances carefully on the edge of the bridge, holding onto the rail behind him and rocking back and forth, humming what he remembers of the song he’d heard Patrick mixing and biting his lip.

He doesn’t feel afraid, which he assumes is a bonus, but he isn’t exactly anxious either; even though he knows he won’t feel a thing. He waits for the sun to rise again before he lets go and plunges back down beneath the water.

Somehow he thought it’d be harder, not being solid and trying to swim, but he makes it right back down to the bottom of the river just as easily as he did the first time. He’s not sure if that’s ironic or not but he’s really not thinking about it as he sets his feet down in the sticky sand below and stares up. There’s no ripples or disturbance in the water at all from where he’d submerged, but none of that matters because before him he can see his car.

Without even thinking about it he wades easily though the dark water and presses his hands against the glass, staring in at his body. When he closes his eyes and makes his peace, he feels himself sinking, pulled in and down and compressed and cold, _so cold_.

And then nothing.

Just nothing.

 

**VERY INVISIBLE**

 

Pete’s fingers find and release the seatbelt and he kicks out the window, cracked from the pressure and fights his way back up.

 

 

\---  
Quotes from _What to do when You are Dead_ that had a direct impact on the writing of this story:

1\. _Car Underwater_  
I. You can’t turn back the clocks, you can’t pull me up from here, so don’t try.  
II. Leave it up to me to burden you again, this was not your fault, so forget, so forget, so forget me. And don’t think back, don’t think back on me at all. Just let me go. 

2\. _The Truth about Heaven_  
I. Walked past my grave in the dark tonight, saw the stone and the note you left for me. To answer your question, I just had to leave.  
II. Couldn’t wake up not right next to you. I traded forever to just hear you say the sound of my name.  
III. But that’s not why I’m here; I came down here to tell you it rains in heaven all day long. I wanna find you so bad and let you know I’m miserable up here without you.  
IV. Don’t believe that it’s better when you leave everything behind. Don’t believe that the weather is perfect the day that you die. 

3\. _Remember to Feel Real_  
I. So here’s the truth: you were right all along, they were never my friends and I was living a lie. But I won’t fall for it next time.  
II. Every day I’m just making my rounds, just digging a home six feet underground.  
III. You figured me out, I’m like a leaf in the wind, I try to find who I am but wind up lost in the end.  
IV. Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s real when you’re not.  
V. Waste all your time with me, I know I’m a mess right now but don’t give up, believe. 

4\. _Basement Ghost Singing_  
I. I’m learning ways not to feel.  
II. I’m gonna close my mouth now, you don’t need more noise in your life. I miss you more than you know but I know time makes you move on. 

5\. _The End of a Fraud_  
I. I’m leaving again for the second time around. You better believe that this was all just a joke to me.  
II. Now I think I believe that I was never alive in the first place. 


End file.
